Update: A 32-bit version of Pinguy OS is now available. Download link at the end of the article.

Yes there is another fork of Ubuntu in town and it is called Pinguy OS.

Pinguy OS is based on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS and is built to have more eye-candy (CoverGloobus, Gloobus Preview, GNOME Do, Docky) than Ubuntu and to be a little bit more user friendly. For example, .iso files open with Basero Disc Burner and not in Archive Manager as it does in Ubuntu.

Pinguy OS is available only for 64-bit syatems. Unlike Ubuntu, as soon as you finish installation you can straight away start listening to music or watch video as all the audio and video codecs are included during the installation. It also comes with Flash and Java. Some minor annoyances in Ubuntu are also fixed in Pinguy OS. These include wireless problems, Gwibber’s Facebook problem and Flash Video in full screen. Even Samba and Upnp are all set up and ready to be used.

Pinguy OS comes with Elementary-Nautilus with plugins to fetch album art from the web. Elementary is the default theme.

All in all Pinguy OS is not much different from Ubuntu. It is based on a stable OS. So it should be stable enough. Its default list of applications also looks very good. It consists of a lot of applications which I usually use (and I am sure that many others too use them).

So, for a complete noob, Pinguy OS may be useful. However, I will not recommend it to anyone over Ubuntu. The problem with Pinguy OS as I see right now is that there is just one person behind it and I do not think only one person can maintain a distro properly. Yes it is based on Ubuntu and you can use the Ubuntu PPAs; but the question is “Will there be new releases like in Ubuntu?” Moreover, most of the changes in Pinguy OS can be done in Ubuntu too very easily. So for now hold on to your Ubuntu installation until Pinguy OS really differentiates itself from Ubuntu.

However, if you are interested, go ahead and download it. If you do try it out, let us know your opinion.

Ricky Laishram is a Linux and FOSS enthusiast. He is passionate about open source technologies and likes to keep abreast with the latest developments in KDE and Ubuntu. He also loves listening to music and is a huge Tegan snd Sara fan.
You can follow him on twitter @ricky_lais.